René Descartes
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René Descartes was an influential sixteenth century French philosopher and mathematician. He is frequently hailed as one of the most influential thinkers since Socrates, and was personally responsible for the discovery of analytic geometry and other mathematical concepts like the Cartesian coordinate system (which is, of course, named for him).
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[edit] In philosophy
Descartes' philosophical treatises, like his famous Meditations on First Philosophy, undertook a complete revolution in philosophical thinking by attempting to use pure logical deduction to create a new way of understanding the world. At first only certain of one thing, Descartes would later go on to prove to himself the partial validity of his senses, the existence of other people, and a distinction between mind and body that would later be called Cartesian dualism.
Descartes' Discourse on Methods would also prove to be an extremely influential text to the contemporary rationalist movement and the later philosophy of empiricism. It established ways in which one could be certain of knowledge gained, and how that knowledge could be tested. Many of Descartes' ideas would be central to the later development of the scientific method. In combination with his other works, Discourse on Methods would lead to a school of thought called Cartesianism (currently defunct) that emphasized the unreliability of sensory data.
[edit] Cogito ergo sum
In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes began with the only thing he felt he knew for sure: that there existed in some way a being that was currently thinking. Deducing from this that there must be an "I" which was doing the thinking, he therefore could conclude that he existed. While not stated so initially, he would later phrase this in the Latin as "cogito ergo sum," or "I think, therefore I am".
[edit] In mathematics
Descartes discovered the principles of analytic geometry, a contribution that would lead others to the discovery of calculus and even more abstract mathematics. Part of analytic geometry, his Cartesian coordinate system, helped provide a way to describe geometric concepts in algebraic language.[1]
Descartes introduced the concept of the power notations, such as a2 to represent 
or the area of square with the sides of length a. He is also introduced the root symbol, 
. This had the effect of freeing mathematics from the geometric restrictions placed on it by the Greeks.[2]
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Descartes.html
- ↑ God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History - Steven Hawking, 2005.
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